District to enlist state group for supt. search
By clare MARie celano
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — Board of Education members have already begun the process of searching for a new superintendent of schools to succeed Dr. Janet Kalafat, who will retire on June 30.
Board President Lynne Coulson said the board has enlisted the services of the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) to assist it in the process of searching for a new superintendent.
Francine Case, director of field services for the NJSBA, will be heading up the search, according to Coulson.
"The association helps you go through the process. At the next board meeting we will present a resolution to hire the NJSBA as consultants to do the search. We will give them the profile of the type of person we are looking for," Coulson said.
"They’ll advertise in (newspapers) for us, then they’ll sift through the applications and look for individuals that match the needs of our district," the board president explained.
She said NJSBA representatives will meet with parent groups and community groups in to get a complete picture as to the type of individual that will work in Freehold Borough.
Coulson is hopeful that by April or May the board will have identified a candidate for the position of superintendent.
She said the borough’s K-8 school district was very fortunate to have had a great deal of continuity in the last 13 years because of Kalafat, who joined the district in early 1990.
"She’s helped us to make remarkable growth," Coulson said. "We were very fortunate to have one person who saw the big picture and who knew what the school board and the people as well wanted to do.
"When Dr. Kalafat came to us, our district was not moving forward. Our curriculum was going nowhere," the board president said. "She turned things around for us. This is not a wealthy district, yet she managed to bring parents and the community together to push through two very large referendums for three major projects in recent years.
"We now have senior citizen volunteers, a strategic planning committee and a school review board that include many people who do not have children in our schools," Coulson said, explaining that these were things created by the superintendent.
The belief that Kalafat brought with her, and one that residents in the borough came to accept and understand under her administration, according to Coulson, is that "good schools are good for everybody in the town."
Coulson has spent three years as the board’s president and has served on the panel for 11 of the last 13 years.
There are three main stages to the process of selecting a new superintendent, according to printed material made available by the NJSBA: preparation, processing and selection.
Preparation includes things such as identifying district long- and short-term goals, identifying professional-academic credentials and personal characteristics and salary ranges and contract provisions.
Processing encompasses things such as distributing ads and brochures, notifying colleges and associations and county superintendents, reviewing resumes for credentials, sending applications to qualifying candidates, screening applications for established criteria and selecting candidates for first and second interviews.
The third stage, selection, has the final candidates visit the borough school district and local representatives visit the finalists’ districts.
NJSBA spokesman Mike Yaple said the association made a presentation to the board on Nov. 18. The cost for the association’s services in this endeavor is $5,000, he said.
Yaple said no official time line has been determined, but noted that from the time the board approves the resolution to hire the association, which is expected to take place at its December meeting, it will typically take about six months until the process is completed and a new superintendent is hired.